


I Blame Galaxy Wine For Everything (And Also Jackson)

by HK44



Series: Brokes, Pennsylvania [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Asexual Character, Assault, Attempted Murder, Bigender Character, Biracial Character, Deaf Character, Drunken behavior, Drunkenness, Fake Marriage, Fighting, Fights, Friendship, Gay Male Character, Genderfluid Character, Heavy Drinking, Humor, Nick and Kali aren't actually dating they just makeout a lot, Other, Public Display of Affection, Public Nudity, Shit goes down, Sign Language, Underage Drinking, alex is a dope when drunk, alex is a shit story teller, everyone goes to jail, mug shots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-15 10:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4602792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look, at the end of the day, it really wasn't all my fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Blame Galaxy Wine For Everything (And Also Jackson)

**Author's Note:**

> I've never been drunk nor been around drunk people to my memory so most of the drunken bits are basically what I've accumulated in knowledge from TV shows, movies and writing.

**You have a mug shot in which you’re naked. Buck naked, I might add. I don’t even- How?**

Well, firstly I’m not buck naked. I’m wearing shoes.

**Yeah. High heels.**

_Platform_ high heels. They accent my legs. Secondly, there is a great explanation to this which I will give when you tell me how the hell you got that photo.

**Jackson.**

Figures. Look it’s not as bad as it seems.

**Which is what you also told your parents, I assume?**

No. I told my parents that it was Jackson’s fault, which it sorta was and sorta wasn't, and then watched as my mom yelled at Jackson for getting me arrested for the thirty-eighth time.

**You’ve been arrested thirty-eight times?**

Forty-nine times. It’s been a hectic year.

**You? You have been arrested forty-nine times? What started this reign of criminality?**

Well, I was eight and we were- No. I’m telling you the story with this photo and that’s that.

**Okay. That’s fine.**

Thank you. Now-

**I’ll just get Jackson to tell me.**

No! You ca-

**So, anyway. Story.**

Wha- No. You can't- Don’t you dare- Ahhh. Fuck it.

Alright, fine.  I was fifteen. It was the summer before all the crazy happened and there I was. Just popped out of school like daisy out of the ground, sporting my beautiful report card and staring at my brilliant grade in math.

Then Kali snatched my report card out of my hands and eyed all my grades. I slid behind Jackson who raised an eye.

“Just about passed in English,” I whispered.

Kali stared at the sheet. Her eyes widened then narrowed then widened again. _“What?”_

“By just about passed what do you mean?” Jackson whispered.

I pressed into his side, watching Kals with a wary eye. “I got a C minus.”

Jackson choked. “Run.”

So I did, not that it mattered. Kali took after me, grabbed the back of my shirt and heaved me into the air, tightening her grip around my waist as she threw me over her shoulder, storming back up the road. I flailed uselessly, Jackson, looking more amused than worried, trailing behind us.

“No, Kals.”

“I do not understand how you can get a C minus in a very simple class,” she muttered.

“Kali, no. I don’t want to go baaaaaack.”

We went back to school anyway where Kali had a long and intimate discussion with my English teacher over my grade. Jackson and I sat outside the classroom.

“What’d you get?” I asked, picking at the polish on my nails.

“A B plus. But you know-” He stretched. “-compared to you, that’s like an A.”

I swore. “Shut up.”

He poked my shoulder and asked, “So what happened?”

“Not much.” I prodded a hole in my sneaker. “I fell asleep, didn’t bother with the assigned reading, botched like ten essays and forgot to do most of the makeup work until a day before grades were due.”

“That _sounds_ like a lot.” Jackson sighed deeply, sucking air in through the cracks between his teeth. “Kali is going to kill. She’s going to fucking _murder_ you.”

I got up. “Maybe I should start running now.”

“Why?” He pulled me back down into my chair. “So she can kill me? No dice, cowboy. I like living. There’s so much I haven’t seen or experienced. Like Sebastian Stan completely naked and talking dirty to me.”

“That’s not a good reason!” I protested but he pushed me down anyway.

“It’s a perfectly _great_ reason. Now-” He glanced down real quick at my chest. “-woman up and stop being scared.”

The door slammed open. Kali stood in the doorway, looking positively murderous. Her eyes were darkened with rage.

“I retract that statement,” Jackson whispered. “Be very scared.”

Mr. Morris stepped out, sliding past Kali. He patted my head. “Enjoy your break. Hope I’ll see you next year alive and well, Alex.” He walked off, swinging his stupid briefcase happily. I pretended like his last sentence didn’t allude to my death.

It didn’t help.

“I am going to destroy you,” Kali breathed.

Yeah. I was expecting that.

* * *

 

 

She didn’t destroy me in the literal sense me but she did yell a lot. Two hours had passed by the time she was finished. On the bus ride to my apartment, I sat next to Jackson. Kali sat across from us and glared at me the entire time. I looked everywhere but at her face. When Kali got mad at you, you regretted every stupid decision you ever made, especially the time where your best friend convinced you to take dead frogs from the science lab and dump them into the vice-principal’s bag because he was part of the five percent.

Which, you know, is purely hypothetical and _I never did._

**Of course you didn’t.**

Curled up on my bed, I hid under my blankets, Jackson petting my hair.

“You know what we should do?”

“Kill the guy who decided English should’ve been a subject?” I grumbled.

He stopped petting my hair to laugh, doubling over in a fit of giggles. I nudged his arm with my elbow until he started petting my hair again. He snorted. “I’m pretty sure they’re dead and no, that’s not what we should do.”

“Then we shall tutor Alex until his brain bleeds, yes?” Kali offered, examining her nails nonchalantly. She sent me a vicious glower when I glanced at her.

I hid further under my blankets.

“No,” Jackson said, “though that does sound like fun.”

“Then why don’t we just make your brain bleed?” I grunted, annoyed, shuffling further underneath my blankets, like a mole into the earth.

Jackson pwaped my head softly but sharply, snorting. “No, baby. I passed English successfully. My brain doesn’t have to bleed anymore.” He stretched out on top of me. “Let’s go to a store. I’m hungry.”

“There’s food here.”

“I want chips.”

“I have chips.”

He got up anyway. “Come on. Let’s go.”

I poked my head out, squinting at the light. “But I have food here!”

“Alex. We are going to the store.” He opened my bedroom door. “Get up.”

“But-”

“Store.”

I got up, reluctantly, and wrapped my blankets around my chest. “Kals?”

Kali shrugged. “I am hungry, Alex. I would like some chips as well. Let us go.”

“Bu-”

“I suppose, if you would prefer, we could remain here and I could further berate you about your failure in English,” she offered.

I glared at her and muttered, “Fine.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jackson dragged us off to a store near my therapist’s building, one we’d been to before, one we’d been arrested in four times before, in fact, for _various_ reasons I don’t want to talk about right now, except to note that those times were _completely_ and one hundred percent _Jackson’s_ fault, except for the one time where it was sort of my fault but still mostly Jackson's.

“You do know there is a perfectly good store near my building right?” I asked while they dragged me in.

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Yeah, so?”

“So! We could go there. Instead of here. Where we’ve been arrested. Four times!”

Kali pulled me out the way of an elderly couple. “I like this store. I feel protected.”

“That’s not protection, Kals,” I muttered, glancing over at a security officer who was watching us carefully from a display tower of cans. “That’s having been arrested four times and being watched so carefully to avoid a fifth.” She just smiled and shrugged, interlocking our arms together. “I don’t think either of us are legally allowed in here anyway.”

“Doing illegal things makes life fuller,” Jackson said

“Wha- where the hell did you hear that from?” I snapped as they wandered down a candy aisle, past a small boy, looking at a box of crackers. “Wait. Did you bring me here to do something illegal?”

“Maybe.”

“No!”

“It’s fun. You’ll get a thrill out it,” Jackson insisted, glancing at the shelves.

“No,” I repeated firmly.

Jackson sighed and turned to Kali, who was examining the back of a box of granola bars. “Kals, tell him to do it.”

She raised an eye, a thin smile playing at the edge of her lips that made me feel like something bad was going to happen. She glanced once at the box before her gaze drifted somewhere behind me. “Do it, Alex.”

“Kali!”

She smiled wider.“You will have fun. It is just one thing.”

“I am not stealing!” I hissed, body shifting urgently, wanting to run but not knowing where to go. “That is illegal and wrong.”

“Look, it’s either steal the ridiculously overpriced bag of chips or pull your pants down and flash everyone at the register while screaming,” Jackson said, looking over his nails.

“Or we could go to Nick’s. Me and you play Mario Kart while Kals and Nick makeout on the couch,” I suggested.

You could practically feel Kali’s interest peak at the suggestion. “That does sound more interesting.”

“Um, no, Kals. I’m not really interested in watching a lesbian love show,” Jackson huffed, shaking his head. “And Alex, you suck so bad at Mario Kart, it’s not even worth playing with you anymore. I need someone I can want to punch and scream at when I play. All I want to do with you is shout instructions and play for you.”

Offended, I started back, staring at him open-mouthed. “Wha- I am an excellent Mario Kart player, Jackson. You just cheat.”

He rolled his eyes, obviously thinking otherwise. “Alex, it takes you seventeen seconds exactly to get your cart started and then you run off the road immediately! I’ve had better races with a fucking five year old than I’ve had with you.”

A crunching noise sounded behind us with a thump. I peeked over my shoulder, twisting round to catch sight of that boy bent over a bag of lollipops. He seemed to be laughing. Kali grinned even wider, which pretty much affirmed my assumption. I took his presence in stride though

“Well, guess I can’t do it since he heard. Okay, let’s go!” I said.

My attempt at getting out of theft clearly did not work as Jackson rolled his eyes and grabbed a bag of chips off the shelf, shoving them into my hand. “Put this in your jacket.”

I pushed them away. “You are being a bad friend.”

“If you really thought I was a bad friend, you would’ve dropped me years ago,” Jackson said, his voice sounding thick. He looked away from me, still pressing the bag of chips into my hand.

I dropped my gaze, taking the bag of chips, murmuring, “Jack…”

The boy behind us wheeled away as Jackson rubbed his arm, saying, “You know what? You don’t want to do it, fine. We can go.”

“I don’t even get why you want me to do it,” I grumbled, shoving the bag into my jacket.

“I wanna be _officially_ banned from some place,” he said, sounding a heck of a lot brighter now that I was going through with his stupid plan, the annoying manipulator. Kali slung an arm over my shoulders, kissing my cheek.

“Why is that, Jackson?” she asked, while I tried to flatten the bag into my chest, hoping my pudge would make the odd lump in my chest seem normal.

“I don’t know. It just sounds like fun. And five times the charm!” he exclaimed.

I stared at his face for a second, vaguely replaying a previous conversation in the back of my mind. “You just want your picture to be posted so you can defile it with lewd comments, don’t you?”

“Maaaaaaaybeeeeeeee,” he said, singsongy.

Kali snorted. “What about our posters?” she teased.

“Well, I was thinking ‘Best Dick’ for Alex and ‘Greatest Tits’ for you. Nicest ass for me, of course,” he said, spreading his arms out in mid-air, imagining the posters in front of us. “Green, blue and purple ink in respectively.”

“Stop talking about my penis.” The bag crackled under my jacket as I shifted. “And if you’re defiling anything with my face on it, you should give me a really cool mustache. And write ‘Best At Math’ on it.”

“No. Best dick.”

“Jackson, I don’t want people to see my picture then start thinking about my penis!” An old woman raised her eyes at me while she placed a box of cupcakes into her basket. I flushed, lowering my voice. “Math or I’m putting this back.”

“Alex.”

“Jackson.”

We stared each other in the eye for a few short minutes before he groaned. “Fine. Fine! We’ll compromise. Best at math and best dick.”

“No! Math only or I’m putting this back!”

“It’s not like I’m gonna put your phone number on it,” he protested. “People aren’t gonna be calling to find out whether or not you actually have the best penis, Alex!”

“I don’t care! I don’t want anything with my penis! Posted! ON A WALL!”

Everyone in our general vicinity took long looks at us. A security officer wandered over. I shifted uncomfortably. Jackson took great interest in his shoes and Kali went back to examining the back of a box of crackers.

“Is someone going on here?” he asked, peering deeply at all three of us and I recognized his mustache. He’d arrested us three times out of those four.

“Um, no, officer,” I mumbled in a high voice, trying to tilt my face away from his scrutinous gaze. “We were just having a, um, a-”

“-discussion,” Kali interrupted in a deep low voice, “about a calendar we are doing to sell at Pride, you see.”

“Yeah!” Jackson said in a really cheap, pathetic Irish accent. “Our, uh, our bigender friend here’s pretty insecure about his privates, don’tcha know? And he didn’t want to participate in the calendar since it’s a naked calendar, ya see!”

“Huh. Aren’t you three a little young to be doing a naked calendar?” the officer asked, taking a step closer.

His thick aftershave washed over us and I recoiled. A crackling sound uttered from under my jacket after the motion and in my head, I swore. I could practically see the light go out in Jackson’s eyes because I doubted this was going as he had planned. Kali froze visibly, eyes widening slightly. The officer frowned, stepping on his back foot, staring, brows furrowed, at my chest.

“What is that?” he asked, pointing at the lump on my chest.

“It’s-” my boob, I was about to say, praying to gods that he wouldn’t realize I was lying, when someone yelled behind us, “It’s a bag of chips, officer! I saw him take it off the shelf!”

The four of us stood there for five seconds exactly before panic finally descended on to me like a holy blessing from (1)Deimos himself and I grabbed another bag off the shelf and threw it at his face, heaving my legs out the back of the aisle with Kali and Jackson right behind me. We busted past the buffet line, squirming our way through crowds of people.

“So that wasn’t the plan but I think we’ll make it out!” Jackson yelled, streaking in front of me and pushing several people out the way as we forced our way down to the frozen food section where I got a cramp.

“SHITSHITSHIT!” I yelled, stopping to stoop over. “Cramp! I got a cramp!”

Kali heaved me over her shoulder again. “I have got you.”

“I NOTICED!” I yelled, grabbing bags of chicken and throwing them at the officer who was chasing after us, calling into his walkie-talkie, “CORA! GET OVER TO FROZEN GOODS! THEY CAME BACK!”

“It’s so sweet you _remember_ us!” Jackson yelled just as a door opened in front of us and another security officer stepped out.

“Oh, it’s you three!” she remarked happily, which is probably an indicator that she’s insane because she kept smiling even after I threw a bag of chicken at her that she successfully ducked.

We fled up the hallway like criminals, people springing out of our way as if we were wielding guns or clinically insane. Which I guess it kinda looked like we were, what with me screaming at the top of my lungs throwing anything within reach behind me and Jackson laughing like maniac, knocking people who strayed in our path out of the way.

“Don’t you feel great?” he asked, darting in front of us.

“I FEEL LIKE I’M GOING TO GO JAIL!” I yelled, leaning over Kali’s shoulder to push over a sunglasses stand. “I AM NOT GOING TO JAIL FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS MONTH, JACKSON!”

“You do not feel free?” Kali asked as she shot out through the first doors.

I ducked so as to avoid slamming my head into the upper wall. “NO!” I shouted, kicking a stand of newspapers and almost being thrown off as they scattered across the floor, quickly hooking my legs back around Kali’s waist as we continued out the second set of doors, tearing down the street to sweet, sweet freedom.

**So how did you get arrested?**

I’m getting there.

We stopped several blocks away, Jackson panting, keeled over still laughing. I slid off of Kali and dropped my head onto her back, taking her even breaths to help my throbbing heartbeat relax. She leaned back some, grabbing my arms and pulling them around her waist. Her thumbs rubbed soothingly in a circular motion against the back of my hand.

“That went- went WAY better than planned.” He panted. “I mean, that was- that was gREAT!” Jackson crowed, pumping his fist weakly into the air. “Whoo!” He bent over again, dropping his palms against the ground, groaning. “Fuck, I hate running.”

“Get a professional run-carrier like me,” I said, standing my tippytoes to kiss the back of Kali’s neck. “Thanks, Kals.”

She tilted her head back and smiled. “You are welcome, (2)Ēlēksa.”

My arms dropped to my sides and I pulled off her back, heartbeat lessening to a smooth, even rate. “I am never doing that again.”

“Well, you probably won’t have to,” Jackson said, a hopeful tone to his voice. “I mean, after destroying store items and some parts of the store and insulting that one guy’s whole purpose of being and harming customers, we’re sure to be banned, right?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” I breathed, pulling the bag of chips out of my jacket. “I’m never going back there, Jack. Never.”

“Alright, alright.” He slumped on a bench, taking some chips from my offered bag. “God, I feel good. Kals, you feel good? Alex?”

Kali nodded, bouncing on the heels of her feet, pulling out a chip from the bag. “I feel good.”

They both turned to me. “I want Nick,” I mumbled, eating my chips.

Jackson blinked a few times then nodded. “Yeah, alright. Let’s go get Nick. Maybe catch a movie. Get some food.”

“And that- that made up for my C!” I said.

Kali frowned. “I do not-”

“Kals.” Jackson gave her look as he stood. “It kinda makes up for C. He threw bags of frozen chicken at a security officer.”

She sighed and said nothing to that but slung an arm around my shoulders and tugged me into her side, which I took to mean that she was agreeing, if a bit reluctantly. We caught the bus to Nick’s house. they opened the door before we even knocked, Katelynn, their five year old sister _who apparently plays Mario Kart better than me_ , flocked to their ankles.

“Mutant told me you were here.” Nick slumped against the doorway. “My mom says she saw some guy putting posters of your faces outside some supermarket when she was going to pick up my dad. They had X’s on ‘em.”

“That was fast,” Jackson said, cheerfully.

Nick raised an eye. “What was fast?” they asked, stepping out of the way so we could take shelter within the house. Katelynn giggled and ran off. The soundtrack to Rockband 2 started on in the living room. Nick frowned. “Who chose Rockband?”

“To your first question,” Jackson began, “our being banned from said store. To your second question, Kali.”

And that was indeed true as Kali was already grabbing the guitar and going through the song selection, eyes furrowed as she looked for something in our skill range, which was nothing because frankly the only person who was even remotely good at Rockband was Nick’s mom, who is forty-five and still gets puzzled over how to use the microwave.

“Why’d you get banned?” Nick asked, pulling the door shut tight and settling down at the drums.

I picked up the microphone and unraveled the cord while Jackson plugged it in. “Jackson’s an asshole.”

Kali told the story while I set myself up on the second guitar, Jackson taking on the microphone once it was successfully unraveled. Katelynn was plopped on the couch, smiling. She clapped wildly when Kali dropped on My Own Worst Enemy and taking the clue, Kali picked that one.

Katelynn is a Special, by the way, but seeing as we didn’t know that at the time, Nick calls her Mutant as a nickname. She can see the future. According to her, I do get my beard on a wish but I end up shaving it off a week later after getting my wisdom teeth surgery because the gas made me think my beard was trying to kill me.

I do not get another wish to bring it back. Apparently no one liked it anyway.

Um, Katelynn also doesn’t talk. I mean, she can but just chooses not to.

**Why?**

I think she chooses not to talk because Nick’s deaf and even though they wear hearing aids, they prefer not to. Nick wears them on and off, depending on the situation. I guess her not talking forces her to find other ways to communicate with him and her sign language is pretty good for a five year old. Maybe she saw a deaf older sibling in her future and reacted to it.

I like Katelynn. She’s cute, her afro’s fluffy like that girl from H.O.M.E. and she always lets me win at Mario Kart. What more could you want?

“Is everybody ready?” Jackson yelled for no real reason since we were all within three feet of him.

“Jack. Stop yelling.”

He ignored me and yelled into the microphone as the screen flickered to showcase our band. “We are The Three Gays and That One Straight Guy-”

“Really?” I said while Nick snickered, Kali smirked and Katelynn giggled.

“-and we are here to rock!” Jackson finished, pumping his fist into the air, just as the beginning notes of the song sounded and we all plugged into our little worlds, trying to make the best on Easy.

 

* * *

 

“Another, good sir!” Nick yelled from the couch, Kali strewn on top of them, hearing aids forgotten on the table beside them. They kissed Kali’s neck for a couple of second before pulling back to yell, “Katelynn, if I see you looking over here one more time, I’m sending you to your room.”

“Yeah, Katie. The lesbian love show is too racy for you,” Jackson said, handing Nick another coca cola.

“Thank you,” Nick yelled again. They paused for a moment, drink barely touching their lips, before handing the cup to Kali to twist over the armrest of the couch. Fluidly they signed, “Go to your room now. Bad girl. Room now.”

I grinned as Katelynn rolled her eyes and stood only to move to the kitchen. Nick turned back to Kali and took a sip of their coke before leaning back up into Kals’ chest. Jackson grimaced and, turning to me, make suggestive motions with his hands, accompanied with jerks of his eyebrows and lip-licking.

I threw a pillow at him.

He yelled.

“I’m ‘that one straight guy’, remember?” I snorted, taking a long drink of my grape juice.

“And I’m a gay in need of love, Allie. Love is very important to us gays,” he whined, flopping to the floor.

I choked on my grape juice, managed to swallow it before doubling over in laughter. Jackson threw my pillow back at me and I ducked away from it, grinning.

“Plus I want sex,” he added as an afterthought. “Or a blowjob. I could use a blowjob.”

“Everyone would like oral sex,” Kali said, rolling off of a Nick to collect her drink from the kitchen.

Nick looked around the room curiously. I translated the conversation, making their nose cringe, repulsed. Nick’s as ace as the day is long and has long since been put off by the idea of sex ever since finding out how babies are truly made.

“I dunno. I would prefer being a relationship first,” I said, signing as I talked so Nick wouldn’t be left out. “Maybe, like, a few years and then we could discuss moving on to a more sexual life.”

Jackson leaned into the bottom of an armchair. “So you’re gonna blue ball your potential partner for a few years. Why are you so weird?”

Nick laughed, leaning up. “ _Maybe you are asexual too,_ ” they signed.

“ _No._ ” I scratched my head, trying to come up with the signs to the words I was thinking. “ _I just do not have interest with sex now. Maybe my brain not caught up with my penis.”_

Nick rolled off the couch laughing while Jackson coughed violently, having choked on his drink. Kali walked in, eyes raised, with Katelynn flouncing at her side, both of them carrying a bottle of wine.

“What is so humorous?” Kali asked, Katelynn translating in fingerspelling after she dropped her bottle of wine on the table.

Nick grinned and said, loud, “Alex!” They pointed to the wine, hands reaching for their aids. “What’s that for!”

Kali paused long enough for Nick to clip on their hearing aids. “We are going to drink it. You also did not have to put those on.”

Nick shrugged. “Your fingerspelling gets shitty when you’re drunk.” They stood. “Alright, I’ll go get the glasses.”

“Wha- we can’t drink. It’s _illegal_ ,” I said, stepping away from the group like they were gonna give me illegal desires just by being within close capacity of them. “We’re underage.”

“Alex,” Nick said, handing Jackson the glasses from the cabinet under the TV, “you want to drink this stuff as much as the rest of us. I don’t know why we have to go through this every single time. Don’t get any on your dress, Mutant,” they called to Katelyyn who Kali was helping pour the wine.

Nick snatched my glass of grape juice from my fingertips. “‘No, I’m not going to an R-rated movie. It’s _illegal._ ’ You went to the movie.”

“And had nightmares for three months!” I protested.

Nick ignored me, handing Katelynn my glass of juice while she spread out her colouring pages and crayons on the floor again. “‘No, we can’t try to sneak into a stripper club. We look too young. We’ll get caught. And it’s _illegal_.’”

“That is just an awful voice,” I muttered, taking a glass of wine. “Not even a _close_ likeness”

“WE still went to the club and you got a lap dance from a dude named Chuck and enjoyed yourself,” they talked over me.

Jackson chugged his glass. “Oh yeah! Chuck! I liked Chuck. You think he’d give me a blowjob?”

“Yes,” Kali murmured into her drink.

“Look, what I’m trying to say, is regardless of how much you say you aren’t gonna do it, you still do it. We don’t force you, well, _we_ -” They gestured to them and Kali. “-don’t force you to do anything you don’t want.”

“I don’t force him,” Jackson huffed, on his third glass already. “I just whine a lot until he does it to make me shut up.”

“You forced me to take the bag of chips!”

“You could’ve put them back!” he laughed, downing the glass and pouring another. “WOW! This crap’s great! What’s it called Nick?”

“That is true, Ēlēksa,” Kali agreed, sitting down while she sipped, admiring Katelynn’s green tiger and purple sun. “He did not make you put the bag in your jacket.”

Nick looked at the bottle’s label, flopping down on the couch. “Viniq.”

“I don’t want to drink the galaxy,” I mumbled, looking at the swirly, universe like pattern in the drink.

Nick rolled their eyes and flipped the channel to Disney. “Mutant, tell us when to stop and I’ll buy you an ice cream tomorrow.”

Katelynn nodded, informed, and pulled out a black crayon and started colouring in the grass on her picture. It took four minutes before I finally decided to drink the damn glass.

“Drink it slowly!” Jackson said, pulling my hand down and dribbling some down the front of my shirt. “Geez, Al. Don’t need you vomiting again.”

“Says the guy who chugs it,” I grumbled.

“At pace. Come on.” He tugged me into his lap. “Slowly.”

**Again? You’ve drank alcohol before?**

Yeah, twice before.

The first time I did in fact vomit everywhere. My dad had rented out a restaurant for a Christmas party when I was twelve and the four of us snuck two six packs of beer out the back door. I didn’t like the way beer tasted so I downed four bottles in sixty seconds, trying to get that buzz everyone always talks about, then puked for four minutes straight and passed out on my way to the bathroom. The doctors at the hospital deemed it alcohol poisoning. My mom smacked me upside the head and told me to ask her for a beer next time so she could monitor my drinking. My dad sobbed into a pillow because he, and I quote, “almost lost his precious, baby-faced, future womanizer son to the sin, the Devil, SATAN, Alex, how could you, why didn’t you ask, I WOULD’VE GIVEN YOU A FRUITY ONE! THOSE TASTE BETTER THAN STUPID BEER!”.

The second time was me at thirteen, on a dare from Kali during a sleepover, asking my mom for a beer. She pulled out some leftovers and told us to eat them because “you can’t drink on an empty stomach, it’ll do bad things” then left to go to a 24 hour convenience store nearby. She came back with five beers for everyone, called up Nick’s parents and pretended to call Kali’s and Jackson’s parents while we ate the leftover because Kali’s _Kali_ and Jackson’s a god too but, you know, his parents are dead and he’s over ninety so… yeah.

The second time wasn’t so bad. She made the fruity drinks my dad was babbling into the pillow about, topped with tons of whipped cream. I did still get drunk, very drunk because things happened that I don’t really remember. My mom deemed me an extreme lightweight and gave me crackers to sober up on. Jackson laughed about it for two weeks before Nick punched him in the face and told him to shut up. None of them would tell me what happened during the fragments I don’t remember but I’ve learned I act completely different than how I am, which amuses them. My mom said I punched a window and screamed at it because it wouldn’t break.

You know, it’s a miracle I’ve survived this long.

**It is.**

I drank my galaxy wine slowly, like my mom and Jackson and the doctors and that one guy with the busted up knee who shared my room at the hospital all said. Nick nursed theirs, rolling their eyes at something that kid with the triangle head said. Kali stared at Katelynn’s drawings and smiled.

See, even though I’ve only drank twice before, my friends have done it multiple times. Jackson gets touchy-feely and tries to remain in human presence as much as possible. Nick gets… odd, less stoic and _evil_ and more rambunctious and childish. I’m pretty sure they could still kill a man though. Kali stays the same but her speech slurs and her movements are more floppy.

Of course, it would take a while for them to get there because I’m the only lightweight in our group. Katelynn would probably last longer than me.

Granted, I’m not a hundred percent sure if Kali and Jackson were faking being drunk or, though they both insisted they tried to stick to human, demigod kind of limits so they could remain as realistic and human-like in every experience with me and I can’t see why they’d lie to me about that...

Anyway, according to science (SCIENCE!), there are four kinds of drunks. I would consider Kali to be the Hemingway type of drunk because her demeanour doesn’t change. Jackson would be the Nutty Professor because while he doesn’t seem like it, he is an introvert and he gets more social, the more drunk he gets and apparently that’s those kind. Nick is the Mary Poppins, the person who gets happier and friendlier and I’m sure Mary Poppins could kill a man so I’m one hundred percent sure that Nick’s murder skills remain intact while they’re drunk. Which leaves me! And from what my friends and family have said from the few times I drink, I am apparently, the Mr. Hyde. The guy who acts completely different from how they normally act, gets more violent and chaotic and unstable.

It’s one of the reasons I don’t particularly like drinking because I wake up with vague memories of punching things and a dull pain in my head and hands that flares my algophobia intensely. I wish drunk me was as paranoid about pain as sober me.

So anyway, I got hammered after two glasses of galaxy wine, to which Katelynn threw her eraser at my head and said, “No” when I went for a third and Jackson was nuzzling my neck after his tenth (Katelynn swapped his glass for diet coke) and Nick was laughing, happy and carefree, at nothing after their twelfth drink (Kali pulled them down into a deep kiss so Katelynn could sneak their glass away from them) and Kali was still pretty stable by the time Mrs. Hamazaki came home.

She took one glance into the room, noticed the bottles of Viniq wine and our drunk-ass selves and sighed. “Katelynn, did you drink?” Katelynn shook her head, frowning at her orange octopus. “Good. Did Alex stop?”

“I don’t need to stahp,” I huffed, trying to worm my way out of Jackson’s grip. “I am FUCKING amazing! And _I don’t get drunk_. Drunk’s for wussies.”

Mrs. Hamazaki smiled. “That’s nice, Alex. Don’t spill anything on my carpet.”

“The galaxy hates yoUR CARPET!” I yelled, slapping Jackson’s arm.

“Alex,” he sighed, trying to suck a hickey on to my neck. “Stay still. And love is great and better than hate and the galaxy loves Karen’s carpet. It’s BEAUTIFUL, MRS. KAREN!”

“Thank you, Jackson!” She stalked back in and heaved the empty bottles into her arms. “That is very sweet of you. I greatly appreciate. This one-” she jerked her head at Nick who was licking Kali’s neck. “-complained because it took me three hours to pick it out.”

“That’s good consideration!” Jackson said, throwing his arms up. “It’s smart because what if it doesn’t fit and meet the standards for your house!”

“Exactly,” she breathed, grinning. “Katie, sweetheart, film Alex for me, would you? Anna asked me to film him if I ever saw him like this. She thinks he’s funny.”

Katelynn nodded while I tried to figure out whether or not they were making fun of me. I decided not and slumped against Jackson’s chest, letting him go back to sucking a hickey on my neck while Katelynn closed her book and pulled out a camera from her bag. It had princesses on it.

An hour later, Kali had finally reached her limit at her twenty-seventh glass and Katelynn had disappeared for a bath. Nick was discussing gender.

“-an’ if I, if I wanna marry but in a suit I should get to!” They slapped a table. “‘cause men are stupid and just ‘cause I got boobs-” They fluffed their breasts here. “-don’t mean shit, right?”

“Right,” Kali said, nodding slowly, eyes glazing over. She shook her head. “Right!”

“Right,” Nick said, breathily, gazing at the ceiling as though the ceiling had bestowed such genius upon it. “We should get married!”

“Marriage ish fuuuuuuuuacking stupid,” I slurred, staring at the stupid carpet that the galaxy hated. “It’s pointless!”

Everyone ignored me. Nick grabbed Kali’s hands. “We should get married!”

“Yeah!” Jackson said enthusiatically. “And- and then I can be the flower boy and throw flowers and everyone will be happy!”

I have no idea where this logic came from but it made sense at the time.

Kali shook her head sadly, looking remorseful. She drank some of the coca cola in her glass. “I can’t. I am already married.” She sounded really sad about it.

“To who!” I snapped, feeling betrayed. How dare she not tell me she was married even though realistically no one can get married at fifteen in Brokes.

“Shiva.” she sighed. “He is my husband.”

“Ohhhhhhh,” Nick said and part of me felt happier that she had apparently remembered the stories about Hindu religion. It did not occur to me at all that she was actually telling the truth. “Okay then! Then we don’t hafta marry. We can just fake-marry!”

It was like God had come down and delivered this fact himself and we were all enlightened. Kali nodded hurriedly. “Yes! Fake marriage is a very good plan! We shall do that!”

“Yeah!” Jackson said over my muttering of how marriage was stupid. “We can go to the marriage place and do fake marriage and make new friends!”

Mrs. Hamazaki, who was watching us all with an amused smile from the couch, chuckled. “If you all are going out, don’t do anything stupid okay? And come home before ten.” She changed the channel to something about food while we all stumbled up to a stand, Jackson still giggling about making new friends and me still complaining about the uselessness of marriage. “And make sure Alex doesn’t punch people!”

I would like to say that once we stepped out the door, my brain started turning on and off so some of my facts are kinda skewed as I got them from unreliable sources, ie. Jackson.

**Okay.**

Good. Okay so! Uh, we wandered around looking for a church when Jackson realized that if Nick and Kali were _really_ gonna get married, then they had to do it right.

“Gotta have something… Blue! And I think something about borrowing…” He trailed off frowning. “Maybe pie.”

Kali grabbed the back of my jacket when I tried to wander off, reciting perfectly, “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

“I want a suit!” Nick shouted, jumping, eyes kinda wild. “I need one! Do you want a suit?”

Kali shook her head. “No. I will wear a dress. Jackson, you will be the flower boy and Alex, you will be my maid-of-honor.”

“You need rings, stupids,” I snarled, trying, and somehow failing, to punch air. “Fuckheads.”

“Not nice, Allie,” Jackson huffed. “And I need a suit. And Alex needs a dress!”

“I don’t need a dress! CLOTHES ARE STUPID!” I yelled at a bunch of birds.

Misery fell on Kali’s head and she pouted. “But, Ēlēksa, I would like you to wear a dress. When I got married to my husband, it was not traditional. I almost stepped on him.”

Those facts were kinda skewed because to my knowledge, Kali didn’t go into her bloodlust murderous rage during her wedding but she was drunk and there are various tellings of such stories so perhaps in one version it did happen during her wedding and-

**Alex.**

Right. Sorry.

So we whisked away to find the clothes and things we needed, stumbling around, generally screaming, “CLOTHES! COME TO US!” At one point I was completely, one hundred percent, totally, entirely and wholly convinced I could turn into a dragon. Jackson threw sticks at me, trying to get me to burst them into flames with my dragon breath, and Nick cheered me on, half yelling in Japanese and English and occasionally swearing in sign language while Kali sucked a hickey into their neck, completely ignoring everything else.

We are not really bright people.

Finally we made it to a clothing store. It was pretty empty, except for a couple people browsing and two cashiers and one other employee cleaning up the changing rooms. Jackson dragged Nick to get some “real (3)darb swanky” clothes

Jackson gets real into ancient slang when he gets like this. How did I never figure out what was going on?

**Because the only thing you’re good at figuring out is math.**

That is a completely valid point.

Buuuuuuuht anyway! Unfortunately Kali didn’t want Nick to leave just yet because she still hadn’t managed to complete her hickey on their neck yet. The woman clearing the changing rooms stacked the last dress away and smiled at us. I scowled. Her nametag read Janice and I was quite against Janices ever since one pushed me into the way of an oncoming car.

Brightly, she said, “Anything I can help you with?”

Nick pumped their fists into the air. “We’re getting fake married!”

Her eyes lit up, amused. “Fake married? Wow! That’s a big step.”

“It is!” Nick agreed and Kali scowled, tugging Nick closer into her, eying the woman like she was the total embodiment of evil.

“So did you four celebrate yet?”

“Yeeeeeeeesssssssssssss.” Jackson grinned. “We drank the galaxy.”

“The galaxy? Nice.” She pulled a few stools out from under the counter. We plopped down, Kali pulling Nick into her lap protectively. “Would you like something to eat? Compliments to the engaged couple, of course.”

We agreed to refreshments and she brought out a box of saltine crackers, spreading them out on a plastic plate neatly.

**She tried to help you sober up?**

Yeah. I mean, underage drinking isn’t a horrible crime and no one in Brokes really treats it as such. The general unspoken rule is make sure your parents know, don’t do it alone and don’t overdo it. If anyone gets arrested for underage drinking, they're either under thirteen (which is the agreed upon age), they're doing something dangerous and/or illegal or they've definitely overdone it and need to get somewhere safe. But that rarely happens. I guess, since most parents aren’t overtly against their kids experimenting with alcohol and drugs, so long as they keep safe when they do, most kids don’t really feel the need to do it or try. We’re weird like that. You tell us not to do something, we do it anyway. You give us freedom and we maintain responsibility.

Granted the Pennsylvanian government is still all strict about stuff, going on and on about how the legal age limit is this and they’ll kill their brain cells and become addicts  and blah blah blah blah so for the most try to keep it on the down low and patiently wait for the day we become our own country.

**You’re really think that’s going to happen?**

Yes!

“So what exactly are you looking for? For your marriage?” The corners of Janice’s lips twitched. I glowered at her face and wondered what it would look like after my fist hit it.

I started to stand but Jackson pulled me back down, shoving more crackers into my hands. “Suits! I need a suit and Nicky needs a suit and I dunno what them two gonna have but we need suits.”

“Yes, suuuuuuuuits.” Nick giggled. “Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuits. That’s a funny word.”

Jackson nodded in agreement, eyes blown wide as though Nick had told him the secrets to the universe and they spent the next ten minutes sounding out the word “suits”. By the end of the ten minutes, Kali had sucked a deep three inch in diameter hickey onto the side of Nick’s neck, the junction right where throat and shoulder meet. It was dark purple, bruising, and Kali looked highly satisfied with herself. I kept attempting to fight hangers and yelled at the few other people in the store, failing at riling anyone into a fight with me. They could probably tell I wasn’t part of the five percent. Throughout this entire spectacle, Janice kept making sure we were eating the crackers while she ran certain outfits by Jackson and Nick.

“Oooooooooooooooooooh,” Nick slurred, pointing vigorously at a gaudy, just utterly hideous, horrible, just… awfully white blouse covered in glitter and rhinestones, with lace on the collar and the sleeves and just… it was shitty and ugly and Nick generally has better taste than that. “Yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssss.”

“Yeah?”

Nick nodded themselves in a stupor, flopping over on Jackson’s arm. “With- with- with like, leopard pants an- and a purple tie!”

Jackson threw his arms into the air, cheer and success evident in his eyes. “Yes! Purple!”

Janice took in Jackson’t purple body and  understanding melted into her eyes. “Of course. Clara?”

An asian girl popped out of the changing room, her work shirt slung over her shoulder. Her bra was very pink, very lacy. I vaguely remember wondering where she got it and how much it was. It was very nice. I wondered if it came in green. I like green more than pink.

She pulled her shirt off her shoulder, spreading it out. “Yeah?”

“We still have those leopard pants in storage?”

Clara paused for a moment then nodded, shimmying back into her work shirt. “Yeah. I’ll go get ‘em.” She snagged the shirts she was trying on, throwing them at the girl sitting at the register. “Save those for me, Hel!”

Hel shrugged, rolling the pages of zher’s book. “Mmhmm.”

Grinning wide, Clara slipped to a door behind the counter. Silence fell for a few seconds before I snapped, bored already, “Is she gonna be long?”

Janice checked her watch. “No.”

The door opened again. Clara stepped out, looking thoroughly windswept. Leopard print pants were wrapped around her neck like a scarf. “I may have knocked over some unpacked boxes.”

Janice frowned. “I’ll clean that up tomorrow.”

Unwrapping the pants from her neck and throwing them at Janice, Clara shook her head. “Nah. I can get-”

“You’ll do it too fast,” Janice said, rolling her eyes, dramatizing her voice to Jackson’s amusement, “and _something_ will get ripped and it _will_ be _expensive_ because that’s how you are.”

“You love me, Jan!” Clara yelled from inside the changing room, having already grabbed three new shirts. Super speed comes in handy for even the simplest things, I guess.

“Try to leave some stuff for other people!” Janice laughed.

She turned back to us, sorting through the clothes while Nick took the pants and shirt, disappearing into another changing room, stumbling a little bit. Jackson leaned forward eagerly until she pulled out some purple items. His eyes went wide and then he nodded so fast I was worried his head would fall off.

“Yeeaaaah!” He grabbed them, pressing his face into the clothes. “ _I love you._ ”

“That’s nice.” She pointed over to Clara’s changing room. “Go try ‘em on. Clara, get out!”

Clara got out, begrudgingly if her expression was anything to go by, Jackson skinning past her, his face still pressed into the purple clothes, and Janice turned to us, analyzing our clothes as though she could figure out what to give us like she did with Jackson. She gave up twelve seconds in.

“What are you two looking for?”

Kali frowned. “I would like… something traditional.”

“So a wedding dress? Or did you mean something traditional…” She paused for a moment. “-for an Indian female?”

“Yes.” Kali said, nodding.

Janice grinned. “I think we have a sari in the back. Is that okay?” Kali nodded again. “And would you prefer a white dress with that?”

“Yes.”

Janice grinned. “And you, sir?”

“Fuck off.” I huffed, snarling under my breath afterwards.

She just kept smiling, looking mostly like she was trying not to burst out into laughter. I am obviously not a convincing as an aggressive person. “Okay. Hel, go see if we still have those sari, please.”

Hel nodded, shifting out of zher seat. Clara flopped on to the stool, grinning at the upcoming customers who had clothes strewn over their arms. One of them had on dark green platform high heels. My interest raised. Leaning back while Kali and Janice looked through the selection of white dresses available, I struggled to tap into my hidden powers of amazing hearing. I managed to overhear their conversation, mentally hardwiring into my brain that they were going to stop at a yogurt place to get something to eat before heading over to a jewelry store on Brackstone Avenue.

Kali came back with a white dress just as Nick came out in that gaudy shirt and the stupid leopard print pants, taking the purple tie happily from Janice. They checked themself out in the mirror, tying the tie really badly and sloppily but still nodding in approval of themself. Jackson stepped out of the changing room, honestly looking the same because at this point he was wearing all purple and he stepped out still wearing all purples so I couldn’t really tell the difference except in that his shirt was tucked into his pants and he was wearing a hat now. He caught sight of Nick and whistled low, making suggestive motions with his hand that made Kali growl and Nick grin wide.

“Thanks!” they said while Kali scowled even more, tugging Nick back into the changing room with her.

Jackson flopped down next to me, grinning. “I look goooooooooood.”

“Shut up.” I glared at Janice. “We neeeeeeed more galaxy wine.”

Jackson nodded, ruffling through his bag. “I gots some.”

“Good. Give it now.” I snapped my fingers wildly.

“Say please.”

“No.”

“Say pleeeeease.”

“Fuck off.”

“Say-”

I punched him in the face.

He gave me the bottle of wine, rubbing a bottle of cold water on his face, fake crying about how I betrayed him. I ignored him, chugging my bottle of water so I could pour the wine into it instead. Janice pushed the plate underneath my hand, small drips of Viniq splashing onto the cracker crumbs instead of the floor. I paused.

Then attempted to chug the whole thing just as Kali stepped out of the changing room (not in the dress it was too small). She stared at me for a moment, eyes furrowed like she was trying to figure out what exactly was going on, until Nick said, “Where did you the galaxy?”

She yanked the wine from my hands. “No! You will throw up!”

“No, I’m good! I’m not gonna puke!” I whined, reaching for it, making grabby hands while she passed the wine to Janice, who stood there, looking thoroughly amused. “Give it.”

“No.”

“Fight me!”

She stared at me for a moment, eyes dark, lips pulled down in a thick frown, displeasure obvious in her face. A sharp pain shot out through my shoulder. I don’t really remember what happened after she pinched me but Jackson said I launched myself at her and bit her arm and she slapped me across the face while Janice stood there with the bottle of wine, seeming concerned and worried but not enough so to do something. Nick became distracted by a bird outside the window and Jackson just kept eating crackers. We stopped whatever shitty fighting we were doing when Hel stepped out the door with a few choice saris.

“I like the green one!” I yelled, reaching for it.

Kali slapped my hand. “No,” she said, examining her options.

While she was distracted, the three of us - me, Nick and Jackson - took the wine from Janice and drank bits of it, eyeing her nervously.

“Get your mom to buy more,” Jackson mumbled.

“Mmmm,” Nick hummed, swallowing the last bit down just as Kali picked a bright red one, fashioning it around her body correctly. She looked at herself in the mirror, smiling lightly.

“You look real nice, Kals,” Jackson said.

“I do, do I not?” She pressed her hand over it, laughing under her breath. “We will take them.”

Janice grinned. “Neato.”

“Nobody says neato, Jan,” Clara said.

“Be quiet,” Janice reprimanded, heading over. “You want to wear those out?”

“Yes.”

Janice gestured over and I wandered out, grabbing Jackson’s bag while they got the tags clipped off, Kali rummaging through her purse. When they slid out, bags of their other clothes latched on to Jackson’s hands, I was already downing the second bottle. Kali swore violently in Hindi, snatching the bottle from my hand.

“No!”

I ignored her. “Rings!” I yelled. “You need rings. There’s a jewelry store on Brackstones.”

She dumped the bottle into the trash to Nick and Jackson's disbelief. The buzz in my head had already come back pleasantly so I really didn’t give a flying who, turning on my heels to march in what I thought was Brackstones only to have Kali grab the back of my shirt and yank me in a the complete opposite direction.

Jackson’s says at this point, I attempted to punch her. She caught my fist and twisted it until I swore bloody murder and bit her shoulder again. I don’t remember doing this and I would like to imagine that drunk me is not as stupid as Jackson insists I am.

It’s very depressing to know that I would even attempt to fight someone stronger and fitter and way more awesome than I am. And someone I had believed was named after a Hindu goddess who is notoriously known for being violent.

I hope drunk me now won’t fight her knowing full well that she is _that_ goddess.

**You probably will.**

I probably will.

Shit.

 _Buuuuuuuut anyway!_ We whittled off to the jewelry store on Brackstones.

**I don’t think your use of whittle is correct here.**

I do not care!

We whittled off to the jewelry store on Brackstones Avenue, Nick stopping every three steps to kiss Kali up against the nearest object until I swore violently and attempted to beat them with a rock. Jackson had to jump on my back and Greek-wrestle me to the ground. I bit his fingers.

“No-” He swore, catching his arm around my throat. “-biting!”

“Fuck off,” I slurred, trying to break the fingers on his other hand, braced against the ground for stability.

Jackson swore. Fingers grasped against my collar, Nick tugged me away while Kalie pulled Jackson off. We managed the rest of the way without too much conflict, though I did, according to Jackson, attempt to fight a burly guy because I found his shirt offensive. His shirt, to my drunk memory, had a smiling fish with a top hat and a magic wand on it.

That sounds like an _amazing_ shirt and drunk me is a moron if he didn’t realize that.

But either way, we made it! To the store! Without me getting a black eye because apparently I’m an idiot when drunk but whatever! Because I _survived._

The two girls who I had overheard just walked in as Kali and Nick were discussing with the employee something cheap but classy for their fake-marriage. He seemed pretty amused over the fake-marriage thing like Janice did, offering a “marriage discount” for the “engaged” couple, smiling wide when Nick crowed with enthusiasm. Jackson stuck to my side for the most part, trying to make sure I didn’t attempt to fight anythiing, but I managed to shake him off at a ring with thick purple gems on it, sneaking over to the two women, who were discussing with another employee the cost of getting their rings engraved.

Part of me, the itty bitty bit that was slowly becoming sober, questioned my motives and brought my morality into light. I backed off, thinking that, yeah, maybe I shouldn’t do this.

Then the girl in the platform shoes shifted and the green caught the light at just the right angle and I decided morality was for losers and Jackson was right. Doing illegal things is fun.

So I tiptoed outside the store right before they drifted out and-

**And?**

_And_ tackled the girl in the green platform shoes to the ground.  ****

On the way down, her girlfiend turned at the loud yelp the girl gave and I punched her in the stomach. She grunted, clutching her stomach and giving me the evil eye before heaving her arm around my collar and yelling. I bit her arm.

**You seem to have an affinity for biting people.**

I do, don’t I? Which is weird, because I’ve never bitten anyone before!

Drunk me needs to get his priorities in order.

**What happened after she tried to tug you off?**

I kicked her in the shin and yelled, “SHOES! GIMME THE SHOES!”

"Bugger off, ya loony!" the girl yelled back, worming her way on to her back. She paused for a moment, which in turn caused me to freeze up. "You have very nice eyes."

"Thank you," I replied. We laid there for three seconds before she attempted to claw out my eyes with her very sharp and very yellow nails.

I hate yellow. It's an ugly colour and it needs to die. The only things worthy of yellow are stars. And the sun. And the sun is a star so just stars. Rage bubbled over into my chest at the sight of such a horrid colour. And then it hit me.

She had to die.

 

**What?**

 

I don't know! My logic didn't make much sense but it basically went, she's wearing the colour yellow with the colour green and yellow is ugly and green is beautiful and therefore she's committed a crime pairing them together, a crime of which the penalty is death.

**That's really shitty logic, Alex.**

I know. See, this is why I refuse to try out for Student Government.

Now, I’d kicked her girlfriend in the shin and she had run inside to get help. By the time, my friends got out of the store, I was attempting to crush the girl’s ribs. It wasn’t working very well because she was now sitting against a pole, texting while I was basically hugging her midsection. I can't recall how we got into this position, just that we did.

Jackson stared for several seconds before stooping over. “Alex, what are you doing?”

“Murder,” I grunted and squeezed harder.

The girl made a noise of pain, fake obviously, and patted my head. “Yeah, he’s really killin’ me. I ache so bad.”

“I don’t think it’s working, Allie,” Nick said, slumping against Kali.

And they was right, I realized. It wasn’t working. So there was only one thing left to do.

Just steal the shoes off her feet.

Which I did, slowly, shuffling down and biting her knees. Everyone just stared at me. They were probably how I managed to survive this long with such wonderfully pathetic fighting skills. She didn’t notice that I had managed to somehow slip both shoes off of her until I jolted up and pelted down the street, over a wall (where I scraped my leg) and down another sidewalk, her voice yelling at me to come back and give her back her shoes.

My memory gets fuzzy and blurs out around this part but the next thing I remember is putting on the shoes and attempting to tie my jacket around myself like a toga. I don’t know what happened to my other clothes. Or my other pair of shoes.

I was in an alleyway with a few stray cats, who were sleeping under a dumpster lid. Poking my head out and looking both ways, I meandered down the sidewalk, trying to remember my address. My toga-jacket fell off after three minutes.

I never saw it again.

I miss that jacket.

**Alex.**

Sorry.

About halfway to my apartment building, a light hit me. I tried to fight it. I failed.

“Hey! You! Punching… Are you- are you… _are you punching the air?_ ” someone yelled behind me.

I flipped them the finger.“Eat my ass!”

“That does not sound appealing _at all_ ,” they yelled, marching over, turning off their flashlight and holstering it. “C’mere, kid.”

“M’not a kid,” I snarled.

They reached for my arm. I kicked them in the groin. They doubled over, groaning loudly. “Motherfu-” Cutting off with a wheeze, they raised, gripping their stomach, face still coiled in pain. For some reason I was still standing there. To this day, I don’t know why I didn’t run away. “Public nudity is against the law, ki- young man.”

And they were right. I was nude. Stark naked, penis grazing on a breeze. I stared at myself and frowned. “Fuck off.”

“Uh huh.” They whistled low, grabbing my arm and waving over a police car. “C’mon. In we go.”

It took both the cops and three other people passing by to cuff me and force me into the back of the police car. I swore the entire time and managed to bit all of them. They read me my rights the entire time.The drive was fundamentally slow and I don’t remember much other than the fact that I tried to escape by kicking the cop driving in the head and throwing myself into the driver’s seat.

We almost ran into a fire hydrant.

The other police officer whacked me on the head and everything kinda goes blurry there. When my vision came back, I was getting my mug shot. There was a heated debate about whether or not they should give me a jacket or something and the “at-least-give-the-poor-kid-a-jacket” side almost won until I bit the camera guy’s leg and tried to steal someone’s gun.

I failed horribly in that.

They made me take the mug shot naked (with my shoes on obviously) and then dumped me in a cell with a burly guy named Joe, who smelled like cheese. Joe and I bonded over our mutual disapproval of the police and enjoyment of galaxy wine. Then Joe was carted off by a fierce looking lady and I was stuck by myself, occasionally taking a moment to ask, “What the fuck are you looking at?” at everyone who walked by.

Two people answered my penis, one little girl in a green tutu said shoes and an old fraile lady with a cane said something so _lewd and sexual_ I will never ever repeat it because it was _disgusting._

**God.**

Yeah.

Now I was only going to do some community service for public nudity and assaulting a police officer and they were letting me out to call my mom when-

“HEY YOU!”

I blinked blearily, sobriety kicking in, when a fist came flying at my face. Instincts kicked in and I dodged the fist.

“Whoa, Murray!” The cop leading me to the phone grabbed Murray, who I remembered as the security officer we out ran at that store, and tugged him back away from me. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s that kid! The one I was telling you about.” He pointed viciously at me, fingers waving. “The one on the posters!”

All eyes all turned in my direction while Murray started ranting about the other four things we did at that store before as well as the thing we did that day, spit flying everywhere. Several officers gave me pointed looks. I attempted a look of innocence.

I got dragged back to my cell.

There was a new guy there. Dave. I did not like Dave. Dave had blood on his body and no visible wounds. Dave scared me.

I got sentenced with public nudity, assaulting a police officer, minor theft and destruction of property and was just about to be issued my phone call when-

“HEY! THAT’S THE GUY WHO STOLE MY SHOES!”

I banged my head against the wall and almost cried when they pulled me back to my cell to discuss this new problem. At least Dave was gone this time. Jackson, Kali and Nick swarmed to the doors, looking worried. A heavyset police officer marched over and watched us carefully.

“Where the hell are your clothes?” Nick asked.

I shrugged and winced. “My head hurts,” I whined.

Kali squatted and squeezed my thigh. “You will be fine.”

“I’m gonna die,” I whimpered and Jackson snorted.

“You big baby. Relax, we’ll call your mom.”

“Good people,” I mumbled then I dozed off.

When I woke up, I was in the back of our car, lying on Jackson and Kali’s legs while Nick attempted to beatbox up front. My mom was driving. She looked calm. I feigned sleep anyway.

“Alex, you awake?”

I didn’t move and said nothing.

“Good.” She turned and I pondered how she knew every single time when I was secretly awake. “You have to report to court tomorrow afternoon. I’m not pleased with you but I’m happy you didn’t get hurt. You’re grounded for three weeks.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” I muttered, snuggling into Kali’s chest while she pet my hair. “Jackson made me.” That of course was a dirty lie. However, I didn’t care. Being grounded sucks and if blaming it on Jackson worked then so be it.

My mom blinked once, eyes going strangely blank. She drove into an empty parking lot and turned off the car, paused for a few minutes in the front seat. She gazed blankly at the streetlamp. Then she dragged Jackson out of the car by his ear and yelled at him for getting me arrested for the thirty-eighth time. Nick leaned back and pet my hair. They’re so good to me.

Twenty minutes later, she stepped back into the car, and Jackson, visible shaken, moved my legs so he could slide under them and dropped his head into his hands.

My mom sighed, deeply, starting the car.“It was still your choice to drink and while _Jackson_ -” She sent him a pissed off look. “-may have convinced you to steal the chips, you still shoulder the responsibility of everything else you did.”

“I’m a good friend,” Jackson muttered into his hands.

My mom didn’t say anything to this but the corner of her mouth twitched and I knew she didn’t really care about my getting arrested or the fact that Jackson talked me into stealing the chips. My charges were public nudity, assaulting a police officer, two charges of minor theft for the chips and the shoes separately, destruction of property and minor assualt. I blamed the galaxy wine. And also Jackson. My minor bopped me on the head and yeah.

That’s the story of how I ended up getting a mug shot naked in green platform shoes.

**Yeah, well, the real question is did you keep the shoes?**

Yes. I did. As it turns out, sometimes people will let you keep stuff you stole from them after you puke all over it.

**Ah.**

Yeah.

**  
**  


**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Deimos is the Greek god of panic.  
> 2\. Ēlēksa is Hindi for Alex, according to Google Translate. If it's not, please tell me the correct translation and I will change it as soon as I can.  
> 3\. Darb is 20's slang for great.
> 
>  
> 
> BY THE WAY
> 
> Nick is genderfluid and goes by gender-neutral pronouns.  
> Alex is bigender and goes by male pronouns.  
> Kali is the actual goddess Kali, taking a human form to watch over Alex. If I messed anywhere about the little bit of Hindu myth I put out there, please tell me. I don't want to insult anyone's beliefs or religion. I am trying to do as much research as possible but I have very little resources besides the internet. I have reimaged her to fit the story a little bit ('tis why she is very bisexual) but I still want to keep the myths surrounding her generally accurate!  
> Jackson is a moron.  
> Katelynn is amazing.
> 
> This story takes place, as Alex states in the beginning, before what I'm hoping will be my book takes place.


End file.
